Search - United States of America :: United States of America (Reis)

This is THE Underground classic of the 60's.

rash67 | USA | 08/20/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is THE Underground classic of the 60's.



The United States of America was, along with the Doors and Jimi Hendrix, one of the most played "alternative" rock albums when alternative rock meant something. After the 60's, some of these albums made it into the classic pantheon, others, just as good, like USA, are obscure.



In 1968, 99% of the rock stations refused to play this because it was too good, too topical, too loud, too literate, too weird and, well, too psychedelic. Only low power college stations would dare to played it and boy, did they ever! Over and over all night!



Dorothy Moskowitz had (has?) a voice with the beauty and power of the Jefferson Airplane's Grace Slick. Dorothy, it's good to hear from you. You were great, Dorothy, why did you stop?



USA, with their synthesizer and distortion violin and without lead guitar goes where no album had gone before and few since. The first rock album to make extensive use of synthesizer as a lead instrument. This was the first and as far as I know the ONLY rock album ever released on the prestigeous classical Columbia Masterworks label.



Commander America said, "The US of A was...the most successful attempt to simulate the mental and bodily sensations of certain popular intoxicants of the Sixties".



To be appreciated it MUST BE HEARD THROUGH HEADPHONES. "Hard Coming Love" hops around your head like a rattlesnake on a skillet in an attempt to simulate an orgasm between your ears!



Full of musical and literary references, Byrd often sounds like late Charles Ives repeatedly quoting "Columbia the Gem of the Ocean". "Steppenwolf" (the book by Hesse, not the band) "the cost of one admission is your mind". "Winnie the Pooh". The visions of Hironymous Bosch's, "Garden of Earthly Delight" where Bryd descibes what he sees inside his girlfriends eyes.



"Song for Dead Che" a beautiful ballad, "Agnus Dei" which compares the aftermath of love and memory to a nuclear blast "shadows on the pavement but no bodies do you find". "Coming Down".



Don't be scared by Byrd's lead-off vehement anti-war diatribe about the military industrial complex, the "American Metaphysical Circus". I still can't listen to American Metaphysical Circus without a feeling of fear and loathing.



From beginning to end a lost classic of the sixties. Alternately lyrical, thought provoking, excessive, paranoid, beautiful, raucous, US of A is a classic with a short half-life which repeatedly appears and disappears from the marketplace. This is the real sixties, not the "Peace and Love - Flower Power" you usually hear about.



USofA was a statment against all that was violent, trivial and puerile in America. There was a war on. Students hated this war and the draft with a anger 1000% higher than war opposition today. Kids were being drafted and sent to die in a war they violently opposed. In the midst of this war, blacks were rioting everywhere. It was a violent angry, dangerous, time. The DC, Detriot, Chicago, Watts were in flames. People were dying everywhere. Today the 60's were viewed as flower-power and silly clothes and drugs, but in reality, these were escapist reactions to the ongoing madness over which they had little control.



This album was definitely NOT viewed as a gimmick. It was the leading edge. The avant garde. Synthesizers were brand new inventions, there were only 3 very obscure Pop albums on the market that used them (Gershon Kingsly), no rock bands.



This was the direction not taken in music because no one else had the wits and talent to pull it off. And no other record company had the guts to release it.



get it while you can. five stars, my highest rating. a classic."

Unfettered experimentation with form

Jeffrey J.Park | Massachusetts, USA | 01/03/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Recorded in 1967 and released in 1968, this album largely reflects the vision of avant-garde composer Joseph Byrd. The supporting musicians on the album include excellent fretless bassist Rand Forbes who was a modern classical bassist (he bought an electric Ampeg fretless for the occasion), wonderful vocalist Dorothy Moskowitz, violinist Gordon Marron and percussionist Craig Woodson. The album is stylistically diverse and the pieces range from Beatles/Jefferson Airplane influenced psychedelic pop, gloomy quasi-Gregorian chant, through electronic experimentation and spacey interludes, to found sounds and general avant-garde tendencies suggestive of an influence by composers like Cage, Stockhausen, and Edgar Varese. The use of electronics on this album is very creative for 1968 and includes (most notably) a crude wave generator built by none other than Tom Oberheim (he was responsible for synthesizers like the Oberheim polyphonic for example). Other electronic effects include running the violin through a ring modulator, which resulted in the violin sounding like an electric guitar - this is an interesting choice given Joe's desire to get away from the guitar "clutter" as he referred to it as. Joe also subjected the vocal parts on The American Metaphysical Circus to the ring modulator treatment as well. Finally, the wave generator was run through an echoplex (echo device) that added yet another tonal color to the recording. The ten pieces are fairly short and range from the 2'37" Coming Down to the 6'38" The American Way of Love. With the exception of the whimsical introductory vocal section of the piece I Won't Leave My Wooden Wife for You, Sugar, all of the music is quite serious. Overall this is an exceptional recording that is a refreshing departure from the rock music typically associated with the late 1960's (or at least the music that Rolling Stone Magazine would associate with the 1960s). Although I was more than satisfied with the ten tracks from the original album, the ten bonus tracks on the CD are OK with Osamu's Birthday being exceptional - in fact, it should have been included on the original album. For those folks that enjoyed this, the avant-garde Swedish band International Harvester and their album Sov Gott Rose-Marie (1969) might also prove enjoyable."

Make Mine Moskowitz

Coloratura | Cincinnati, OH | 11/06/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have been acquainted with the TUSoA album since it was fairly new, and it always held interest for me. But rediscovering it now via this newly expanded Sundazed release has been a revelation.



Joe Byrd's concept was to organize a group of musicians coming from other genres and disciplines to record a rock album, and the result was a conceptual masterpiece -- sonically progressive, lyrically adventurous, whose corruscating flavor could be termed (at different times) humorous, schmaltzy, daring, brazen, corrosive, sensuous. They even quote Hermann Hesse's "Steppenwolf." The album is arranged as a flowing, organic whole -- an experience that alternately charges, romps, coos seductively and shimmers like a flying saucer. I mean, what more can you ask of an album?



The new remaster has given the album a full-bodied presence it has never had before. The bass playing is masterful and fluid (and has been mixed to reach down to the subwoofer, unlike some remasters I could name), but so is all the playing. There is something to love here, musically, whether you favor The Mothers of Invention, Jefferson Airplane, It's A Beautiful Day or Country Joe and the Fish... yet The USA seems more modern when heard today than any of those other acts. The vocals of Dorothy Moskowitz are often described as icy, but I find her sound warm and fragile on the classic "Love Song for the Dead Ché" and other times, as on "Hard Coming Love" as being casual, savvy and enticing. She would not sound at all out of place duetting with The Zombies' Colin Blunstone.



As an added enticement, Sundazed has included several bonus tracks to the original album. Among these are USA's Columbia audition tapes (which sound spectacular), alternate versions ("I Won't Leave My Wooden Wife For You, Sugar" provocatively sung by Dorothy, but not as effectively as by the male vocalist on the album), and a few demo tracks from the Dorothy-led splinter group which never recorded an album of their own. These songs are softer and less complex than the material on the USA album, but interesting and at times infectious in their own right. "Tailor Man" has a particularly catchy groove that is hard to dismiss. She had her own sound, and a valid one.



I post this at a time when there are several brilliant new releases vying for my ears, from Brian Wilson's SMiLE to Bjork's MEDULLA, and TUSoA -- thirty-some years old -- is exerting as strong and as fresh a pull on my attentions as any of them. It is probably my favorite album of the moment, which is saying a lot, if only in the face of SMiLE. Perhaps this is because the USA made only this one album, which makes it all the more precious, or it may be a testament to its creative invention, youthful vitality and sheer variety. The USA was a great, undervalued band who deserve broader recognition. I hope a recording will come forward someday to document how they sounded live.



P.S.: I love knowing from Joe Byrd's liner notes that this album was played loud at a party in the home of a personal hero of mine, actor James Coburn. I picture him sitting in the midst of all his guests, playing along with "Coming Down" by banging a gong with complete abandon."